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The Ten Minute Interview – Graham Vass, General Manager Ellenborough Park

Publish date 25/05/2011 Angharad

When hotelier Graham Vass sat down with Editor Ian Mean it was clear we were in for an interesting time. Billed as ‘The Ten Minute Interview’ Graham’s insight and articulate answers to questions meant it ran over, not that anyone in the room seemed to mind!

Graham Vass grew up in Swaziland, South Africa where the only real main industry when he left school was tourism. He went for a job in a casino “because to a 17 year old they meant James Bond, fast cars and pretty girls”, but instead was offered a job in a hotel as a trainee.

Graham Vass and Ian Mean

His previous employers policy was for staff to retire at 60 and Graham had planned to go to the Seychelles with not much more than his shorts and a fishing rod before the chance to manage the Ellenborough came up. In his own words he couldn’t resist the pull of a new hotel.

Moving from the glorious weather of South Africa to the temperamental weather of the Cotswolds has raised a few comments, but Graham laughs off suggestions he’s downgraded because of the move. “Since being here we’ve had the best snow for Britain in 100 years, the hottest spring on record and the best Easter – as good as it gets weather wise!”

Turning to the tricky question of the economy Mr Vass admitted that it was perhaps a bit of a gamble to go ahead with a £15 million redevelopment but that it was worth taking. “Timing was risky due to the recession but we saw this as a unique opportunity – a magnificent listed building crying out for refurbishment.  It gave me the inspiration to go ahead – it’s so much more than a Cotswold country manor house now. We worked carefully with English Heritage and other organisations to preserve the building and reduce its impact on the environment. We had architects working on this project for a number of years and I’m sure some other people in the room tonight will know how strict English Heritage is on projects like this one.

“As I’m sure you know we did open a little later than we had hoped and were running a few weeks behind schedule because of the severe winter weather. We knew we had to open in time for Gold Cup Week as we were fully booked and couldn’t let people down.   We opened immediately before the races and went from zero to 100% occupancy overnight which was a huge challenge for all of our staff.  Aside from that we’re looking for around 45% occupancy for our first year but people don’t know we’re here – we really need to get on the map.”

On the topic of the Ellenborough’s uniques selling points many of the other hoteliers were keen to hear what they were up against in the county’s only 5* establishment and Graham didn’t disappoint. “As well as our executive chef David Kelman, who is very well known for his work locally, I’d say our main USP is our direct access to the racecourse. I’ve only been here for one Festival week but I’ve seen what the traffic can do to Cheltenham in that one week! We were able to take guests straight down in 4×4’s – getting them from the hotel to their boxes in around eight minutes which is fantastic.

“I’m conscious that we try to source as much as possible for the hotel locally – not just the food. It’s quite sad that sometimes fine china is now as likely to come from Beijing as Stoke on Trent, the birthplace of fine china, and this is something I’d like to see changed. Our first choice is always going to be to support local business.”

Thanks to Mr Ian Mean from Gloucestershire Media and to Mr Graham Vass from Ellenborough Park for this interview.

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